Bluehost hosting plans in detail

Shared hosting at Bluehost costs between $7.99 to $14.99 a month (1st-year discounts available). The Bluehost WordPress optimized hosting starts at $39.99 monthly. You can get a VPS for $29.99 a month, cloud hosting from $9.99 a month and a dedicated server for about $120 a month.

Bluehost Shared hosting cost

Unless you have a big project or you have unusual technical needs, shared hosting (the cheapest) is your best option. Bluehost offers the following plans:

Basic

Plus

Choice Plus

Allowed websites

1

Unlimited

Unlimited

Visitors

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Storage

50 GB

Unlimited

Unlimited

Free domain name

1st year

1st year

1st year

Subdomains

25

Unlimited

Unlimited

Email accounts

5

Unlimited

Unlimited

Advanced backup

No *

No *

Included

Databases

20

Unlimited

Unlimited

FTP accounts

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Secure FTP accounts

1

1

1

Free SSL

Via Let’s Encrypt

Via Let’s Encrypt

Via Let’s Encrypt

Refund policy

30 days

30 days

30 days

Prices after renewal *

12 months

$8.99 / month

$12.99 / month

$16.99 / month

24 months

$8.49 / month

$11.99 / month

$15.99 / month

36 months

$7.99 / month

$10.99 / month

$14.99 / month

* Bluehost offers interesting discounts the first year, but the prices go up after renewal.

Sidenote: Be warned that in my experience, Bluehost’s performance is not the best. Other providers like SiteGround offer better results. Find out more about the results of our performance tests.

Bluehost Pro
They offer an add-on called Pro that can be added to any hosting plan. It provides your account with a dedicated IP, an SSL certificate, domain privacy and advanced site backup options. It starts at $13.95 a month for 3-year deals – to be honest, I think it’s really overpriced and unnecessary for most users.

The Basic shared hosting plan is for smaller projects that don’t need to host more than one website and don’t plan to use more than 50 GB for storage (which is a lot). You’ll be allowed to create 5 email accounts and your website will be SSL-ed for free.

If you need hosting for more than one website and need loads of web space, consider the Plus package as it comes with unlimited websites and storage.

The Choice Plus plan offers a nice (but expensive) perk; an advanced backup (and restore) system that will keep your projects safe. Being 100% honest, having this important feature only on the most expensive plan is a big boo for Bluehost. Many competitors include this in all their plans.

Bluehost VPS – Virtual Private Server

If you need more capabilities than what the shared hosting has, or require a customized setup of your own server, a VPS is the next logical step.

You can think of a VPS as a dedicated server that has been divided into several smaller servers. Each of these smaller servers hosts different projects – similar to dividing a big house into smaller flats.

But it gets pricey – you’ll need some budget for it.

Standard

Enhanced

Unlimited

Storage

30 GB

60 GB

120 GB

Bandwidth

1 TB

2 TB

2 TB

CPU cores *

2

2

4

Ram *

2 GB

4 GB

8 GB

Dedicated IP address

1

2

2

Price for 1 year (after renewal)

$29.99 a month

$59.99 a month

$119.99 a month

* Higher CPU and RAM memory translate to higher server performance.

BluehostVPS storage runs on SSD driveswhich are much faster than traditional hard drives and improve the overall speed – I would not expect otherwise at these prices. Unlike some providers, Bluehost offers 24 hours support with their VPS plans too.

Bluehost cloud hosting plans

You can understand cloud hosting as a network of servers connected to each other. That’s why this type of hosting is suitable for projects with changing performance needs.

For example, imagine that you are going to launch a social media campaign that will bring tens of thousands of concurrent visitors to your site. With a cloud hosting solution, you could simply allocate more resources to accommodate this anticipated traffic peak.

WordPress optimized hosting

If you have a large WordPress site, Bluehost offers a managed WordPress solution. This is built on top of a VPS solution (isolated from other accounts) and ‘highly tuned to run WordPress extremely fast’. But be aware that this is rather expensive.

WP Standard

WP Enhanced

WP Premium

WP Ultimate

Allowed sites

5

10

20

30

Webspace

30 GB

60 GB

120 GB

240 GB

Visitors per month

100 Million

300 Million

600 Million

Unlimited

Bandwidth

1 TB

2 TB

3 TB

4 TB

RAM memory *

2 GB

4 GB

6 GB

8 GB

Price for 1 year (after renewal)

$39.99 a month

$59.99 a month

$89.99 a month

$129.99 a month

* The RAM memory has a direct impact on the server performance, the higher the RAM the more concurrent tasks the server can perform (so the faster it’ll be).

Additionally, it comes with SiteLock to increase your site’s security and a CDN that will speed up your WordPress site.

Personally, I think that providers like WP Engine or Flywheel have better WordPress optimized hosting solutions at similar prices. And if you are looking for a cheaper but solid alternative, check SiteGround out.

Bluehost domain prices

Domain names at Bluehost cost $11.99 a year for a .com, $8.99 for a .org, $12.99 for .net domains and $11.99 if you are looking for a .co.uk. On top of that, $0.99 a month if you require Domain Privacy Protection (personally, I’ve never opted for this).

Additionally, Bluehost tries to push you to add Codeguard, a backup add-on that will cost you $2.99 extra a month – a bit cheeky if you ask me.

Bluehost SSL Certificate pricing

All Bluehost hosting plans provide free SSL certificates one way or the other (e.g. via Let’s Encrypt). But if you are still looking for one, Bluehost proposes several alternatives to SSL your domain name.

Provider

Yearly price

Positive SSL

$50

Comodo SSL

$80

Positive Wildcard SSL

$149

Comodo Wildcard SSL

$299

These are really pricey. Again, you can find cheaper alternatives at providers like Namecheap.

A piece of advice: Bluehost is one of the pushiest providers I’ve ever tried. So if you open an account with them, be ready to receive endless upgrades and upsells pitches. You’ve been warned.

Bluehost Pricing FAQ

Can I purchase an email account from Bluehost?

Currently, Bluehost doesn’t offer email accounts. They encourage you to purchase one of their hosting plans where you can create email accounts.

Using hosting plans for email purposes is pricey and not straightforward to manage. If you are looking to create your own email account(s) but don’t need web hosting, check other providers like Namecheap.

Are there any hidden fees?

Bluehost is great at charging for random stuff, be aware. For example, if your hosting account expires without a renewal, they’ll demand $30 extra to reactivate it. They also try to mask the renewal prices behind insane discounts during the first year.

Does Bluehost come with a money-back guarantee?

Yes, all Bluehost hosting plans come with a 30-day money-back policy, meaning Bluehost will refund your money during that period.

However, be aware that this policy doesn’t apply for most of the other products and add-ons (e.g. domain names).

Can I cancel my Bluehost account?

Sure, you can cancel your Bluehost product from your dashboard, find the renewal options under the ‘Billing Information’ section and set it to ‘Do not renew’. This ensures that you can use the product for the entire purchased period and won’t be canceled immediately.

If you need to cancel your Bluehost account at once, contact their support and ask them to take care of it.

Do you have any question or would like to share your exoerince? Please, leave a comment below.